PFINGSTEN: HOMICIDE DISCOVERY SHATTERS A FAMILY

The night air had a bite to it on Jan. 3 by the time deputies taped off most of the parking lot — telltale blue and red dancing across quiet storefronts — and huddled near the SUV where a dead body had just been found.

Zipped into a sleeping bag and tucked in the back seat of a 1998 Toyota 4Runner in the Fallbrook Towne Center, although no one knew it yet, was Alvin Bulaoro.

A few might have sensed that it was him, but they weren’t giving up on their last strands of hope after nearly two weeks of searching.

One was John Bulaoro, the second-oldest brother, who hovered nervously just beyond the caution tape, watching for anyone to approach the vehicle.

But no one did, not for hours.

Eight o’clock.

Nine o’clock.

He had found it there around 6 p.m., called the Sheriff’s Department, and spotted blood inside that would turn out to be his big brother’s when deputies unlocked the SUV and found the body.

Bulaoro, a slight Filipino man, shrugged off a television reporter and smiled meekly at a woman who offered her version of condolences: “My nephew was murdered last year.”

I had met John Bulaoro the afternoon before, at the family business, AA Sophia Homecare, where his older brother should have been. At that point, we were discussing a missing person, not a homicide.

“He takes care of everything — bills, payments, house, all of the necessities for the elderly,” he had said of the facility’s four current patients. “That’s why it’s weird for him to be missing and not call us or anything. He always calls.”

On Wednesday, as Bulaoro sat in his brother’s customary seat at the dining room table, in front of his brother’s laptop, he refused to venture a guess at what might have happened.

Alvin Bulaoro went missing on a Friday night, Dec. 21; John had been calling detectives, printing up fliers and contacting the media since that Sunday.

The family had immediately discovered the painful truth about police procedures when healthy, able-bodied adults go missing: There is not much the law can do until evidence of foul play turns up.

“That’s the thing about the system,” he had said. “If you’re an adult ...”

Lacking any indication of what might have happened, the family was left with an overwhelming load of questions.

“How’s Mexico, when you go to the border?” Bulaoro asked me during our interview. “How do you get in? You need a passport, right? I was wondering about that.”

None of it was relevant 24 hours later.

After the speculation, the postulating, Alvin Bulaoro turned up right here, in Fallbrook, on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Finally, around 10:30 p.m., the medical examiner’s minivan arrived.

“Busy day for them,” a cameraman nodded as the investigator moved around the 4Runner, snapping images from every useful angle.

Eleven o’clock and the temperature continued to plunge. John followed me inside the Albertsons in the shopping center, to a table beside the idle Starbucks kiosk, and filled me in. A lot had happened since the previous afternoon.

On Wednesday, a woman from the homicide division phoned to say that the 4Runner had been seen in Hillcrest on Dec. 28, and again in the Fallbrook Towne Center lot on Dec. 29.

Bulaoro did not understand why his family had not been informed of this sooner, but he drove to the Albertsons late that afternoon to request help from whoever could access the surveillance cameras. While there, he scanned the parking lot.

Bulaoro’s nightmare thickened at the sight of the SUV.

Third row from the end, about halfway down, centered in its space.

A crime scene was established — half press, half law, dozens of onlookers — and the answers were slim and unsatisfying.

One question in particular lingers: Who was it who made sure Alvin Bulaoro’s SUV was parked straight before they locked the doors and walked away?

John Bulaoro was the only member of the family to venture past the cordon that night, but several others were there — Alvino Bulaoro, for example.

Father of five — now four.

Fingerprints, the deputies said. The victim will be identified by fingerprints tomorrow.

But Alvino Bulaoro’s first-born lay in that unapproachable sport utility vehicle, and he knew.